Judith Sephuma

By intertwining deep-rooted traditional music with contemporary tones (mainly Jazz, but also RnB), Judith Sephuma has crafted a strongly South African, yet globally accessible sound that has earned her legions of fans.

The 2001 BMG release of her debut album, A Cry, A Smile, A Dance, launched Judith and her remarkable voice to a national and international audience. The award-winning platinum album, and especially the title track, turned Judith into one of South Africa's premier artists with an intense live performing schedule which took her as far as the Netherlands, Mexico and Senegal.  Judith's second album New Beginnings was released in 2005.  It contains a mix of English and Vernacular songs (sePhedi, Xhosa, Tswana), with the talented singer taking songwriting and co-producing duties on much of the album.

Growing up in Polokwane (formerly Pietersburg) in South Africa's Limpopo Province, Judith knew that she wanted to be a singer from an early age. After matriculating at Khagiso High School, she attended Johannesburg's legendary FUBA Academy music school in 1993, where she received her Grade 5 Music Diploma.  Other achievements included reaching the finals of the Shell Road to Fame contest in 1994, and the finals in SABC's Jam Alley Search For Talent that year. In 1994 she made a significant move to Cape Town to study music at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1997 with a Performer's Diploma in Jazz. Judith then gained her Honours Degree in Jazz Performance, majoring in Jazz Singing, under the supervision of Prof. Mike Campbell, in 1999. While studying Jazz singing, she was also classically trained by Virginia Davids for five years.

During her years in the Cape, Judith's reputation as a vocalist blossomed, and she had the opportunity to work in bands like Selaelo Selota's Taola, Meropa, UCT's Big Band, The C-Base Collective and The Cape Symphonic Orchestra. She also performed with Jimmy Dludlu, Loading Zone and Ian Smith's Virtual Jazz Reality, as well as alongside musicians such as Jack van Poll and Gerry Spencer, and sang at many cocktail parties and private functions. In 1996 JUDITH SEPHUMA was invited by Spencer to travel on the Symphony cruise ship for two months, visiting exotic places like Bazaruto, Mauritious, Zanzibar, Mombasa, and Reunion. Later the same year she performed, with the band Meropa, in Nantes, France at the Fin de Siecle Festival - her first overseas visit 1998/1999 with the assistance of pianist van Poll, Judith gained much experience performing in Europe, and among her gigs was being invited by the South African government to perform in Holland for the Mandela's Children Trust Fund.

Judith has performed at all major Jazz festivals in South Africa, with the 2000 North Sea Jazz Festival in Cape Town standing out as a career highlight, as this was her first headline performance under her own name, with her own backing band.  Other sentimental highlights include being invited by Jimmy Dludlu to perform at Thabo Mbeki's presidential inauguration in Pretoria, June 1999. In that year she also had the honour of meeting former president Nelson Mandela and sang a special song to him and his wife, Graca Machel, at the Cape Sun Hotel.